Saturday, June 8, 2013

I may be a little late to the party, but when this show came to my attention last week I knew I had to check it out. the basic premise is that a 12 year old kid finds a ring that belongs to his aunt who recently passed away. said ring gives him superpowers, complete with costume and batman style vehicle and cave. the catch is that the super hero is Shezow in all previous instances a girl superhero with very feminine outfit and gadgets.

that light saber he's holding, it comes from a tube of lipstick, and it's official name is laser lipstick.

some outlets have been stating that this cartoon contains the first transsexual superhero, unfortunately that's not the case. the ring doesn't change guy(the main characters name) into a girl just gives him the dress. and there's no indication of gender identity issues, he's perfectly happy with being a guy. for him the dress is simply a small price to pay for the cool superpowers it comes with.

that being said I do think there is a lot of value in the show for gender questioning youth. the fact that guy has to dress very girly is laughed at only a few short times in the first episode, even for the majority of that episode becoming Shezow is seen as a very cool thing, guy even manages to taunt his sister with the fact that he's Shezow.

I can not put into words how much a show like this could have helped me when I was growing up. seeing a guy doing girly stuff and not being shamed or laughed at for it but it actually being a source of confidence and strength. daughterOfMulan one of the contributors on the gamerisms tumblr I'm a member of (actually she's the main contributor) has already done an excellent write up on how it presents femininity has empowering (read it here). but the almost gender bending aspect really does provide some particular benefit to trans kids.

so in short I feel there's a lot of positive aspects to this show, and has far as kids show's go it's pretty good even independent of it's progressive elements. so here's to hoping it catches on, and here's to hoping someday soon kids will have a real transsexual superhero they can look up to.